In 2007, The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, was the best-selling book in America. The book was featured on two episodes of Oprah, which significantly boosted sales. At one point the book was selling 150,000 copies per week. Total sales: 19 million books.

The Secret has many proponents—and many detractors. It’s described as a self-help book on the power of positive thinking. Some critics say that the book offers nothing but false hope to people who try to solve their problems by wishing them away, when they need more conventional solutions.

The premise of The Secret is the Law of Attraction. Here is how it is defined in the book:

Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life. And it’s attracted to you by virtue of the images you’re holding in your mind. It’s what you’re thinking. Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you.

Now, let me say here that from this point on, I’ll be discussing my spiritual beliefs, which are not mainstream. Through my own experience and reflection—I explain the process in my book, Love Fraud—I’ve come to agree with many of the ideas that fall under the general heading of “New Age.” I recognize that there are charlatans and loonies who call themselves New Age—it’s important to be discriminating when exploring the ideas. I also honor traditional religious and spiritual beliefs. I believe that there are many valid paths to peace and wholeness, and we should all pursue what speaks to us. This is what worked for me.

Abraham and the Law of Attraction

Before the astounding commercial success of The Secret, the same concept was being promulgated in New Age circles by Jerry and Esther Hicks. Esther Hicks has the ability to channel information from a group of non-physical entities who go by the single name of “Abraham.”

Here’s how Abraham defines the Law of Attraction: “That which is likened to itself is drawn.”

In a CD entitled, An Introduction to the Teachings of Abraham, the entities explain the concept further:

You are a magnet, attracting unto you that which you are thinking and feeling … You are the creator of your experience and you attract unto you through your thought, and your word, which is an extension of your thought, and through your action, which is also an extension of your thought. What we are saying is literally you are creating your experience.

The greatest resistance that we have received about that is that there are so many that have those things in their experience that they don’t want, and so they cannot believe that they would have created it. They say, Abraham, I would not have done this unto me.

And we say, we know that you would not have done it on purpose, but there is creation by default, which is putting Law of Attraction to work by summoning or soliciting or inviting into your experience that which you do not want by thought, not understanding the rules of the game, so to speak. Without exception, that which you give thought to, is that which you begin to invite into your experience.

Personally, I believe the Law of Attraction. I have seen it work in my own life. But I also believe that the explanation of how it works doesn’t go far enough, and I’ll explain why.

Experiencing the sociopath

I was married to a sociopath. This man took a quarter-million dollars from me, cheated with at least six women during our 2.5-year relationship, had a child with one of the women, and then, 10 days after I left him, married the mother of the child. It was the second time he committed bigamy.

Now, according to the Law of Attraction as explained above, the sociopath came into my life because he was attracted by my thoughts. This is ludicrous. I never wanted to be in a relationship with a “bad boy” type of guy. I didn’t lie, cheat or steal—these behaviors are not in my repertoire. I’m not selfish and self-centered; I am a law-abiding citizen concerned about making the world a better place.

The Law of Attraction also says that focusing on what you don’t want brings it to you anyway. In other words, if you’re thinking, “I do not want to get sick,” the Law ignores the “not” part of your thought and delivers sickness. So does this explain why the sociopath showed up?

No. I never worried to myself, “I hope I don’t meet a con man.” I didn’t run with a fast crowd. It never occurred to me that I would cross paths with a con man. And I certainly didn’t fret about meeting a sociopath. I didn’t know what they were.

So where did this guy come from?

Human energy field

The key problem with the Law of Attraction, as it is usually explained, is that it says we create through our thoughts and feelings. It would be more accurate to say we create with our energy fields.

Some people refer to human energy fields as auras. People who can see auras, such as Barbara Ann Brennan, author of Hands of Light, say that the auric field has seven layers, emanating out from out bodies. Brennan, by the way, isn’t a flake. Before becoming a healer, she was a research scientist for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center. She holds a master’s degree in atmospheric physics.

According to Brennan, each of the aura layers is associated with a specific purpose:

Now here’s a key concept: Anytime we experience trauma—sickness, injury, fear, anger, a violent death—it creates a disturbance in our energy fields. To fully recover from the trauma, the energy disturbance must be released and healed.

Here’s another key concept: Disturbances in our energy fields can remain with us over multiple lifetimes.

Reincarnation

I’ll say it right up front: I believe in reincarnation. This is the idea that we experience multiple lifetimes. At some point after death, our souls decide to return to Earth, and come back to life into a newborn body.

According to a 2005 Gallup poll, about 20 percent of U.S. adults believe in reincarnation. Around the world, however, most people accept the concept. It is a central idea in Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Most followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam do not believe that people reincarnate, although there are exceptions. Early Gnostic Christians, the Cathar Christians of the 11th to 13th centuries, the mystical Kabbalah movement of Judaism, and some sects of Islam, all accept the idea of reincarnation.

I believe that we are all on a journey back to God, back to wholeness with the Universe, and that the journey extends over multiple lifetimes.

Lessons on Earth

We incarnate on Earth in order to learn particular lessons. Sometimes the lessons involve releasing pain and trauma from past lives. And that’s where the sociopaths come in.

With the help of a facilitator, I was actually able to catch glimpses of my past lives. And in many of them, I saw previous incarnations of the sociopath who tormented me this time around—James Montgomery.In every lifetime that we shared, he exploited me. By his hand, I was deceived, beaten, raped and killed.

I came to learn that my soul wanted me to bring Montgomery into my life one more time. Why? Because all the traumas from my previous involvements with him were stuck in my energy field. By engaging with him again, I would be able to bring those old disturbances to the surface of my awareness and release them. With that, I would be free of him.

The process was painful and ugly. It took longer than I wanted. But it worked. The traumas are no longer with me. I’ve replaced them with peace, love and happiness.

Law of Attraction—expanded

Based on my experience, I believe that the Law of Attraction needs to be rewritten. It should be:

We are the creators of our experiences in life. We attract experiences through our thoughts, our feelings, our energy fields, and to fulfill the lessons that our souls want to learn.

The good news is that the traumas can be released, and the lessons can be completed. Then, we can use the Law of Attraction to bring all those good things that we really do want into our lives.

18 Comments on "The Law of Attraction and sociopaths"

I do agree that we keep taking on the lessons until we learn them. This time around, I was determined to get out of school with Montgomery, and I have succeeded.

I’m not sure that sociopaths manipulate because that’s what they did in childhood. I think it’s far more sinister than that – they manipulate because they feel entitled to do anything they want, regardless of who may be hurt in the process. I’m not even sure they care about happiness. Mostly, they care about winning and control.

The flipside of what you’re saying, Donna, is that just as we were brought into this life to work out past struggles, other people were brought in to facilitate those scenarios. Sociopaths. Psychopaths.

So the question of whether they can be reformed is held hostage to that — to us and our resolve to, as you say, “get out of school.” We release them from their duties.

I’m just wondering if I can skip the hands-on internship in tiger wrestling and just leave the tigers in their cages. Can I just take the final exam in writing?

In this lifetime, casting my baby sister as the spath was quite a curve thrown at a two-year-old kid. I couldn’t have escaped that one if I tried.

So now the guilty part: Did I create her to be my spath, my teacher? Did her soul have any say in that? Is this why she keeps wanting me to apologize for . . . everything? The fact that I cannot remember doing anything awful to her in this lifetime is not a defense anymore.

I think that’s the biggest misunderstanding in the Law of Attraction. I was asking myself questions like, “Did the Jews ask for the Nazis?” No! And yes. Because I think it’s as Donna says. We’re kind of born into it, from past lives. There’s an unconsciousness to it, and the other half — the oppressor — has to show up in the same time and place. (I would also say, in regard to genocide, that the rest of the world puts out unconscious thoughts and intentions, too.)

That’s even scarier to me than thinking “I did it to myself.” “I walk right into it and don’t even realize it” is harder to change. Part of it is the “not” portion of our thinking — “I don’t want that” — avoidance is creation of that thing you’re avoiding. So if a group is going around saying, “We don’t want to be persecuted,” they’re going to be persecuted. It’s why anti-racism doesn’t work against racism. Only positive messages work. (I’m having a coffee at this-here lunch counter; you got a problem with that?)

We’re born into a lot of negative, avoidance messages that we don’t even hear in ourselves anymore. I walk around anticipating how I’m going to respond to conflict, and the conflict shows up. Instead, I have to learn to fantasize about avoiding that conflict — asking the person to participate with me in a solution. Being someone other than that person with a target on me, saying, “Don’t hurt me.” The kind of fortunate person no one would even THINK of hurting. I actually said to some people recently, “I’m going to scare everybody today by spreading love and optimism.” It catches the world off guard. It doesn’t know how to respond except like that guy on “Candid Camera” who talks back to the mailbox because it’s the proper thing to do.

We say we offered that to our tormenters, but think back: Were you really operating from a physical feeling of power and strength when you “fell in love”? How fast were your revolutions-per-minute? Spaths target “strong” people, but I think we’re mostly strong in that “I will survive” kind of way, rather than an “out of my way, I’m taking charge here.” Taking charge doesn’t feel like love . . . but it will.

Because “The Secret” is presented in a way that is too simplistic, it can have exactly the effect that you described – it can cause us to think that we brought something onto ourselves because of our negative thoughts.

This can happen, and I describe two incidents in my book where it did happen, and resulted in me receiving tickets while driving.

Hi Everyone,
Donna thanks for the warm welcome. I wrote a lenghty response as to where i am at emotionally and physically and i lost it in cyberspace somewhere. I want to look around your site for a bit but i am so grateful to my guides that Lovefraud was thrown my way and in the nick of time. TTY again soon. Thanks again for sharing your personal stories with me and allowing me to share mine. Light and love, Caylin

Post a Comment

I married a con man

—a man who I now consider to be a sociopath. I didn't know anything about sociopaths when I said, "I do." Before you give away your love, your money or your life, read this website.—Donna Andersen, author of Lovefraud.com